PERTH (miningweekly.com) – A Western Australian Supreme Court Judge has ruled that mining personality Clive Palmer’s Mineralogy’s legal proceedings against Chinese government-owned Citic is an "abuse of process" and "unjustifiably oppressive and vexations".
Judge John Chaney last week permanently stayed two legal actions that Mineralogy launched against Citic, saying they overlapped with an existing ongoing dispute between the two companies.
Chaney said that the overlapping legal proceedings were launched as an effort by Mineralogy to avoid the consequences of court-imposed rules on how the company could make changes to one of legal cases.
Mineralogy in September this year launched a $10-billion claim for damages in the Supreme Court of Western Australia, claiming that Citic continued to export ore from the much-contested Sino iron-ore project, without paying royalties to Mineralogy.
Mineralogy leased the Sino iron-ore mine site to Citic, which acquired the right to mine two-billion tonnes of magnetite ore in the Pilbara from Mineralogy, between 2006 and 2008. During 2012, the company exercised its option to acquire the right for another one-billion tonnes.
However, in 2012, Citic received notices from Mineralogy alleging that terms in the mining right and site lease agreement had been breached, with Mineralogy maintaining that it was entitled to a royalty payment of 3c/t of all materials taken from the mine area, including waste material.
Since then, both parties have launched a number of legal claims and counter claims over the Sino project, with the so-called Royalty B payment at the heart of the dispute.
While Chaney’s ruling permanently stayed two legal actions, it still left room for Mineralogy to apply to the court for leave to amend its claims in the Royalty B claim.
Mineralogy was not available for comment at the time of writing.